Monday, January 27, 2020

Prophecies Fulfilled

Day 9

Today started it with a little bit of a world history lesson for Tatum. She had heard of the Holocaust but only by name alone. Debbie and Gene Presley helped me teach her about all the things she was about to see at the Holocaust museum/memorial. It wasn’t like life was floating around and all of a sudden concentration camps… There was a lot of buildup beforehand entire anti-semantic movement began. A brainwashing of a nation to decide to abolish a group of people.



Walking to the museum I tried to explain the best I could to Tate why people were the way they were and what they did and how the Nazi ideology invaded country by country. The countries who excepted it were scared so they conformed to become just as brutal. There were many images I couldn’t look at and I told her not to look at them either. Not to turn a blind eye, but because it was enough. It was too much. I interviewed a couple of our church family members after and Mark had said, “...evil can sneak up on you and you better beware”.
No pics allowed inside the museum. Roni snapped this one on the way out.

We walked into a church that was built upon the hill where Jesus was crucified (possibly). Steps led us to a rock...”the rock”. Roni lead us back down the stairs where there was a line waiting to get in to see what was considered THE tomb. We did not wait in the line he took us around the corner to see another tomb.

We were led all around the tiny storage locker shops in the streets of Jerusalem. We made a few purchases here and there and then went back to the heart of the Jewish quarter for lunch. 
Mark, Becky, Tate and I had an extra 20 mins at lunch so we went back to the shops to grab one more thing....well...we got all turned around. My fault. There I said it. With the help of a few amazing locals we made it back.






Walking through the streets on our way to the south wall to sit at the steps of the temple we ran into Michael Cohen… Writer of the song El Shaddai.

On the steps of the south steps, we stop to read. John 8. Jeremiah 17:12-13 is a connection to John 8...Writing in the dust. Smokey pointed out that everyone wants to speculate what was it he was writing in the dust. That wasn’t the point. The point was...prophecy fulfilled. Boom.



From here we walked the Via Dolorosa backwards. This meant we walked down hill...the easy route. Our final stop was St Anna’s church. Pastor Smokey offered another lesson in John 19 there is the courtyard, which used to be the sheep baths before the people offered their sacrifices. One after another after another after another we read of prophecies from the old testament fulfilled with the crucifixion of Jesus. We kept flipping back-and-forth between old testament and new testament to read with the prophets wrote and then back to see how the apostles told the story.


After Smokey was done preaching we went into the small church and sang again. When I said we sounded like a choir yesterday, it pales in comparison to the acoustics in this place. We sand “Amazing Grace” together and our voices just traveled up and around. 


We all huddled into one space tonight to debrief on the happenings of the day. You all already know this and I do too, but we have a pretty special church family. The bond that binds us together at FBC Sapulpa is pretty strong. I am only about three years new to this church and after this week the list of people that would get on their knees for me (and I for them) has grown.



 If you are reading this and feel like you are sitting on the outside looking in at church find me. I am Erin. I would love to get to know you and make you feel the love that I have for my church family. 

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